Ischemic heart diseases are one of the leading causes of death in humans in the industrialized countries. Although ischemic injury of heart tissues can be greatly recovered by rapid reperfusion, severe side effects such as cardiac over-contractile function, arrhythmia, endothelial dysfunction, and myocardial infarction often occur due to reperfusion. Moreover, endothelial dysfunction in ischemic heart tissues may lead to the loss of the endothelium-derived dilator of nitric oxide (NO), decrease of blood perfusion in the tissues, myocytes apoptosis, non-infectious inflammation and other complicated cardiac pathological status [1]. Therefore, ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury has been evidenced as one of the most pivotal pathological factors of human ischemic heart diseases.
Ginsenosides have been demonstrated as the major chemical components of ginseng herb responsible for the most observed bioactivities in clinical usage. In vivo and in vitro investigations have revealed a number of significant effects of ginsenosides and ginseng extracts in cardio-protection, such as reducing myocardial ischemia-reperfusion induced damage via NO pathway in rats and mice [2], slowing down deterioration of cardiac contractions, preventing development of arrhythmias [3] and relaxing the muscles of the aorta [4]. Previous studies by the inventors of the present invention showed that total ginsenosides (TGS) significantly increased coronary artery flow in both basal perfusion and I/R injury condition of the isolated rat hearts in Langendorff system through activating Akt-eNOS signaling, which suggests that TGS could benefit patients with ischemic heart conditions [5]. The inventors further discovered the molecular mechanisms underlying the myocardial protection of TGS through proteomic analysis with two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and MALDI-TOF-TOF-MS techniques, revealing that improvement of cardiac energy metabolism via activating proteins in tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA cycle) could be the major action pathway and targets of TGS activity against rat heart tissue injury [6].
As mentioned, ginsenosides may be a potential source to isolate effective compounds for protection against I/R injury.